Page 20 of Silent Scream

‘What?’ Bryant asked as six curious eyes landed on him.

‘Courtney?’ Kim asked. ‘Is there something I need to drop to your wife?’

Bryant chuckled as he removed his suit jacket. ‘I’m a happily married man, Guv. My wife said so. And anyway, Courtney is mending a broken heart courtesy of Joanna, the English teacher that was coming on to you the other day.’

Dawson turned, his eyes wide. ‘Really, Guv?’

‘Down boy.’ She turned to Bryant. ‘Why the call?’

Bryant raised an eyebrow. ‘Following your logic of past, present and future I asked Courtney if she had access to Teresa Wyatt’s employment history. She’s faxing it over.’

‘Put that girl on the Christmas list. She’s saving us a fortune in warrants.’

Kim turned back to Stacey, trying to visualise the piece of land. ‘Hang on, are you talking about that field right next to the crematorium? The one where the travelling fair sets up?’

Stacey turned her monitor and pointed. An image from Google Earth filled the screen. ‘Look, there’s something fenced off at the road edge but otherwise it’s just a waste piece of land.’

Kim’s gut was now churning out of control. Every sense she possessed was on high alert.

‘Stace, look up the name Crestwood and get me everything you can. I have some calls to make.’

Kim took a breath as she sat at her own desk. A few pieces of the puzzle began to slide into place. And for the first time in her life, she hoped she was wrong.

Twelve

Tom Curtis turnedover and faced away from the window. The daylight didn’t normally stop him from sleeping after an eight hour shift at the care home.

The work was exhausting; picking up fat, old people, putting them to bed, dabbing their spittle and wiping their arses.

He’d already avoided two internal investigations but he suspected that this third one might be more problematic. Martha Brown’s daughter only visited once a week and when she did she was sure to notice the bruise.

The rest of the staff had turned a blind eye. It was impossible not to lose patience now and again. Being the only male on the team meant he would often turn up for the night shift and find that the heavier jobs had not been done. He was powerless to complain. If he’d been honest on his medical form he would not have a job at all.

But it wasn’t even his conscience that kept him awake. He felt nothing for the old folks under his care and if their relatives were affronted they could bloody well take them home and wipe the shitty arses themselves.

No, it was the ringing of his mobile phone that was keeping him awake. Even though he’d switched it off he could still hear it in his head.

He turned and lay on his back, glad that his wife and daughter had already left the house. Today was going to be another dark day.

The dark days had punctuated the last two years, seven months and nineteen days. It was on these days that the urge to drink was overpowering. It was on these days that sobriety was not worth his life.

When he’d left culinary school he had never envisaged that his future would consist of changing the nappies of old people. When he’d graduated he had not foreseen old, wobbly flesh around his neck as he lifted geriatrics in and out of bed. He had not dreamt that he would be hand feeding a group of people who were filled with rigor mortis before they’d taken their last breath.

At twenty-three he’d suffered his first heart attack which had rendered him unemployable on the restaurant scene. Long hours and stressful working conditions were not conducive to the long life of a person with congestive heart disease.

One day he’d been serving haute cuisine in a French restaurant at Water’s Edge in Birmingham and the next he’d been preparing turkey burgers and frozen chips for a bunch of worthless kids.

For years he hid his addiction from his wife. He became a master of lies and deceit. On the day he collapsed with a second heart attack his lies had been uncovered when the doctor had advised that the next bender would most probably be his last.

He had not taken a drink since that day.

He reached across and switched on his phone. Immediately it began to ring. He hit the end button to cut off the call, taking the tally of missed calls to fifty-seven in three days. He didn't recognise the number and no name displayed on the screen, but Tom knew who was calling.

And the caller would have spent his time better had he tried to reach Teresa. It was obvious that she'd opened her mouth to someone and it had got her killed.

He suspected that the authorisation for the dig had made them all jittery but he didn't need the check calls. He would keep their damn secrets, just as they had kept his. They had made a pact. He knew that the others viewed him as the fragile connection in the chain of deceit but he hadn't weakened yet.

There had been times, especially on the dark days when he'd been tempted to speak out, to rid himself of the poison. Those thoughts had been more easily silenced by drink.